Deep Diving, Democracy & the Shaman

[Jane Sweet]

I am committed to deep diving. 

But I am more committed to a democratic list. 

An article from Today's NY Times, I though it apt: 


http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/21/arts/21TAUS.html


P, responding to Mr. Hirch, said that he did manage to
locate some information that might be useful to Mr. Hirch,
especially if Hirch's interest was in African motivations.

He lists the following: 

1. a monograph by Lutwig, H.G., "The Religious Systems and
Social Organizations of the Herero

2. Kemink en Zoon, Over den dom, Utrecht, not date though
someone has written in pencil, in brackets on the title page
"1933?" Seed's Note on this says, Luttig (published 1933/4)
supplied Pynchon with information about the layout of the
Herero village, etc. (V. Gravity's Rainbow, p.321.) 

Note, P says his proficiency in German language is nearly
nonexistent.

3. a pamphlet by Steenkamp, W.P., "Is the South-West African
Herero Committing Race Suicide? Unie-Volkspers Bpk, Cape
Town, again no date, though internal evidence suggests 1935.
Seed's Note says, The Herero birth decline is discussed in
Gravity's Rainbow, p.317

I posted some excerpts from *Herero Heroes* by Jan-Bart
Gewald. Gewald also discusses this birth decline, abortion
and suicide. 

P explains the problem the difficulty with getting the
African side of things. 

Here he mentions the filtering through the literate
(McLuhan), the Western Christian bias usually missionaries. 



 P says, personally, I feel that the number done of the
Herero head by the Germans is the same number done on the
American Indian head by our own colonists. 

 and then he says, and it is also what is now being done
on the Buddhist head in Vietnam by the Christian minority in
Saigon and their advisors. 

 what it involves, P believed, is the imposition of a
culture valuing analysis and differentiation on a culture
that valued and values unity and integration. 

David Seed's note reads: Pynchon's letter was written at the
height of the Vietnam War. Early 1968 saw the battle  for
Hue, the virtual siege of Saigon and the struggle for
control of the Mekong Delta. 

And what P says is that it impossible to get at this w/o
first getting at the Herero religion and social
organization.

So he digs deeper, it's deeper, he turns to comparative
religion and all the other stuff
we find that makes GR and P's treatment of these issues
Deeper in VL and M&D. 

Before we lapse into another war of absurdities and denials
of denials, let's recall certain protocols in argumentation:
in particular ad hominem attack.  

It is one thing to speculate about P's intentions, modesty,
sheepishness, and explore the ambiguity of a text, or to
call a text ambiguous.  But it is another to presume that a
person or group of people call a text ambiguous because
they, for whatever reason, are personally disposed to do so.
Now I admit to my own inconsistency, sometimes this is a
defense mechanism, sometimes a pedagogical proclivity,
sometimes and the best times is when my flips and flops are
products of my education, my learning more, diving deeper.
I'm very grateful, sincerely grateful for this free
education.  The point is that we don't know what the
personal motivations behind an argument may be, and even if
we do, or even if the person admits to certain dispositions,
the strength or weakness of the argument lies in the
argument
itself, not in the poster of it.  To attack the person, and
not the argument, is not only illogical it is
non-productive, and it only diverts attention away from real
issues and on to phantom personalities. Yes, we are all,
even those that post under their own names, only posting in
cyber space. If we were at a conference or in a classroom
and we could shake hands and see the person we not say most
of what we post here. There are winners and losers when
technology is introduced to a culture. We have the
privilege, the power, to communicate with folks that share a
common interest even though we are miles apart. But we have
lost something as well. Some of those stodgy old dead white
Greek's I love so much argued that  writing was a dangerous
technology, the words of a man were meaningless w/o the man
to give them breath. We have given up some of the
foundations of rhetoric in the interest of communication.   

Therefore I ask members of this list to refrain from ad
hominem and let's try not to label people into presumed
stereotypes, even ones like "Pynchon Scholar." 

Getting off the box now, 

Jane